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Today's data: payroll employment!! 🥳 In April, Alberta saw modest gain of 2k. Now ~58k below pre-recession level. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quoti… #ableg #cdnecon 
With nearly five-years having passed since the recession started, it's worth reflecting on the changing composition of jobs in Alberta. Big reductions in oil and gas, construction, manufacturing. Big increases in health/education.
Using a proxy for 'public' vs 'private', it still looks like there's been two full years of little to no gains in private-sector payroll job growth. Disappointing.
Alberta earnings have been flat for over a year, and remain just below pre-recession level. Adjusting for inflation, average weekly earnings of Albertans are today at their 2010 level.
What accounts for the disappointing earnings growth in recent years is an important question. Part of the answer is found in the still low average hours worked per week. Wages have grown since the recession ended, but hours have not.
For context, among hourly employees, the average number of hours worked per week is 31 -- down two hours per week from the pre-recession level.
Another part of the answer is the higher number of hourly employees vs salaried. Hourly employees, on average, earn less and therefore increasing their share of total jobs can pull down the aggregate average earnings level.
The changing sectoral composition is also very likely part of the story (see earlier plot), but I don't have a clean way to represent that shift's effect on earnings (yet).
